


Aftermath

by Anonymous



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon, Present Tense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-15
Updated: 2015-08-15
Packaged: 2018-04-14 21:57:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4581588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of the Memory World arc, the High Priest settles into his new position.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kazesuke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kazesuke/gifts).



> Thanks to S for the beta. Any remaining mistakes are mine.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The Millennium War is over.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Two days.

The morning after it all ended, Set had stood on the palace veranda and lookedover the palace grounds as the reconstruction got underway. Atem had walked up to him, and left him the mandate of the sun-god and the Pendant that had shattered into forty-eight pieces in his hands.

Now, Siamun comes up to him and says, “You are Pharaoh now.” By position, by birthright, and by the king’s last wish.

\--Set is nothing like Atem. That man - his cousin and friend - had shone far too brightly for this world to contain. He was the kind of ruler who had to die young - who had to give his own life for the sake of the world, and always be remembered for the sacrifice.

But Set— he is the one who lives through the war. He is the one who survives to inherit the ruins left behind. He and Siamun and Isis and Mana.

The Millennium Circle is broken and the king is dead, but there is no time to grieve. They must bury the lost; shelter and feed the wounded and the infirm. In time, they must rebuild the city.

That night, Set lights a candle and tips the fragments of the Pendant over his writing-desk. He shifts his fingers through the irregular shapes, but try as he might, he cannot put the pieces back together.

Time passes away like water through sand, and as he drops the last of the gold back into Atem’s puzzle box for safekeeping, the first light of dawn creeps over the horizon.

 

* * *

 

 

Three weeks.

The construction of Atem’s tomb had begun the day he had ascended to the throne. Siamun had personally designed the labyrinth. Now, he confides to Set that he had not thought back then that they would so soon have need of it.

At the site, Siamun taps the tip of one shoe against the edge of the winding stone passageway. The floor crumbles beneath the weight, and he nods, satisfied.

He leads them through the safe path into the heart of the labyrinth, and in place of a corpse, Set lowers the puzzle box containing the pieces of the Pendant into the crypt. Mana seals the tomb with a spell, and with it, the last of the Dark Games. Atem’s sealing had severely weakened the magic of the Items, but even so, the four of them had decided that those artefacts must no longer be used except for the most ceremonial of purposes.

They return to the palace, and begin the long task of erasing every trace of the late pharaoh’s name from the archives.

 

* * *

 

 

Siamun has retired for the night. Set had decided he could work a little longer, as had Isis; Mana had insisted on staying with them to help, but now they find her curled up in one of the chairs, dozing lightly and still clutching a stack of court orders the late pharaoh had signed. Isis slides the sheaf of parchment from under the girl’s hands and pulls a blanket up over her shoulders. “She’s too young for this kind of responsibility.”

“She was Mahad’s apprentice,” Set replies. “She’ll be fine, don’t you think?”

“I hope so,” Isis replies with a smile, looking down at the girl with fondness, and Set is surprised. She used to smile so very rarely, after all.

 

* * *

 

 

Four months.

The day that the Shrines of Wedju are to be sealed, they pay one last visit to the resting place of the stone slabs that held souls. Once, the Millennium Circle had torn those monsters forcibly from the bodies of humans. Once, they had fought alongside those monsters, and summoned them to do their bidding in the war. Now that the power of the Dark Games has all but passed away from the land, those  _ka_  will never be revived again.

_Something that can be seen, but you cannot see it. Something that exists, but you cannot reach it._

They pause before the tablet of the Black Magician. Mana clutches a little tighter to the folds of Isis’ dress, but her expression is resolute, and she does not cry.

Set looks for the White Dragon, for he knows that she must be among them—her spirit trapped in stone and buried with the rest of the monsters in this place where no light can reach, gathering dust.

Isis notices that his steps have slowed. She follows the line of his sight to the place in the wall where the White Dragon lies, and says, “You knew that person?”

He says, “Yes,” and nothing more.

 

* * *

 

 

That night, Set dreams.

During the war, that day— over the ruined courtyard and the open sand, the sun had shone brightly enough to blind him. Blood, spattered in a red arc across the ground; he does not know whose it is—Kisara’s, or Akhenaden’s. The White Dragon rises toward the sun and turns to sand, then to ash. Dust trickles through the neck of the thief-king’s hourglass, and the wind carries it all away into the blue and empty sky.

He wakes. The night is dark, warm, silent.  Automatically, he gets out of bed, and turns his steps toward the outside of the building. Perhaps fresh air will help to clear his mind. But the pharaoh’s quarters are located in a different wing of the palace than his own had been, and it takes him time to find the way.

When he reaches the veranda, he finds Isis already there. At the sound of his approach, she turns and nods to acknowledge his presence. Her hand is clasped at the hollow of her throat where the Necklace used to lie.

Once, before the War, she had stood here with Shada and looked over the palace grounds at the Shrines of Wedju in the distance. She stands alone now.

She says, “You should be resting.”

He says, “So should you.”

He follows her gaze to the horizon. His kingdom, now. He had never expected it to come to this.

 

* * *

 

 

Ten months.

They have talked about this for some time. Although some semblance of normal life has returned to the city, there are still significant losses to trade and economy that cannot be restored with their current depleted resources. Besides, now that the conflicts are well and truly over, it will become necessary to make reparations with their former enemies.

Siamun’s years make it difficult for him to withstand long travel, and Mana has not yet established her position in the Court. So Isis volunteers to go, since she is the only one who can.

Set accompanies Isis and her aides to the city gates. Often, she had stood at these gates as soldiers rode forth into the wars. She had known without a doubt that they would die, yet hoped otherwise. Now, nobody knows what waits beyond the edges of the desert sand.

He wants to say _Be safe_ or  _I wish you well_ , but instead he reaches to catch his fingers in her hair, and leans down to kiss her. She reaches for him in return, fingers cool against the back of his neck, and there is surprise in her eyes as he pulls away.

 _Surprise is a strange expression for someone who is used to knowing everything_.

“Priestess,” one of her aides says. “We must go.”

She nods to him, and turns back to Set. “I’ll come back,” she says.

He thinks that he will need to hold her to that promise.

 

* * *

 

 

The villagers still tell stories about the White Dragon.

A long time ago, they prayed for salvation from the robbers and the fiery rain. He alone knows that they had revered the dragon, but stoned the girl. Given the chance, they would have killed their god with their own hands.

In a time of crisis, they had seen an apparition and turned it into a symbol of hope because they needed something to believe in. But the wars are over now, and one can no longer escape reality by hiding in a dream.

 

* * *

 

 

Three years.

He sees Isis only rarely. She still spends most of her time traveling as an ambassador to the neighbouring lands, rebuilding trade relationships and political alliances fragmented by the years of conflict.

One night under the desert’s empty sky, when they no longer have to put on their political faces, he asks her how it is that she has been able to do this much for this long.

She replies, “Someone told me once that no matter what, I must live on.”

The grief runs far deeper than that of a councillor for the kingdom she serves. So she, too, lost someone in the war. They can understand each other then.

She will never tell him who it was, just like he will never tell her about Kisara. It no longer matters, in any case. If they are to rebuild the kingdom together, the past is a weakness they cannot afford.

He wonders, nevertheless. If—when he kisses her, and presses his fingers into her skin-- if she is pretending that he is someone else. ( _He never does. He has loved another, but Isis is the one who survived the war. Isis is the one who lived to stand by his side._ )

Later, he asks her to marry him. She says, “Yes.”

 

* * *

 

 

Set still wakes in the night with a constricting sensation in his heart and tears in his eyes. Now, however, he can no longer remember the dreams.

Isis turns to him and says, “Set…?”

The warmth and weight of her body, flush against his, is closer than any memory. Tomorrow, she leaves for the kingdom across the sea. “It’s nothing,” he replies, and pretends to go back to sleep.

He cannot pass the rest of his life in the shadow of a girl who no longer exists. Even now, he can no longer remember her face— only the blinding light of the White Dragon that had appeared over the burning ruins of his home, that day.

Perhaps, if things had been different, Perhaps, in another time, or another life. But not this life.

In this life—

 

* * *

 

 

Seven years.

Siamun has retired from his position as vizier, citing his age, but remains in an unofficial capacity as advisor to the pharaoh. Mana is court magician, now, and has taken on an apprentice of her own: the child of one of the serving-girls, a young boy who worships the ground she walks on. And Isis. She has just returned from a long sea-journey, bearing gifts and trade agreements from the United Lands of the Poseidon Ocean, who had once been a bitter enemy.

He thinks again that it should never have come to this. That man with no name, remembered by no one now except the tomb-keepers--he is the one who should have lived to reign over this kingdom’s prosperity. Instead, now, a stone carving in the palace archives with the names erased is the last remaining evidence that he ever existed at all.

This, too, will pass. There are many should-have-beens in Set’s life, but over time he has put them all away.

The sky is cloudless tonight. It is almost like that night, many years ago, when they had looked upon the ruins of the city that had fallen so abruptly into their hands and wondered what the future held in store for them. Their city, now. They are the ones who survived the war. They are the ones who rebuilt the kingdom with their own hands.

In a week, a procession leaves again for the United Lands of the Poseidon Ocean. It will be led by Isis’ own aide, trained in the art of diplomacy by the years he has spent at her side. Isis says that he is more than capable of handling her duties.

The years have been harsh to her. So, when she prepares to accompany them in an advisory capacity as always, Set asks her to stay, instead.

And she does.

 

 

 


End file.
